Steinway Discusses Hamburg vs. New York Steinways
Kent Webb is the Manager of Technical Service and Support at the Steinway & Sons factory in New York. He has been a wonderful colleague and faithful mentor to me ever since I met him in 2005 and has been graciously answering my endless questions in my relentless pursuit to learn everything I can about the construction and manufacturing process of Steinway pianos.
Dear Kent,
I feel that there is this “multi-year quest” to standardize the New York and the Hamburg factories’ products in various aspects (rims, materials, etc.) since Thomas Kurrer became the President of Steinway & Sons Worldwide. I was interested in your opinion for the reason for this attempt? Thanks, Kent! yoori
Kent replied:
Hello Yoori,
Interesting question and no doubt there is some speculation among people that may be interested in such things. Here’s my take from the inside.
With two plants operating world-wide, Steinway is trying to minimize the number of parts and component SKUs on models shared by New York and Hamburg so as to maximize the production and usage of these parts. This helps to contain costs and there are also benefits like unified and enhanced quality control measures and such. Plates are a key target since we own Kelly Plate in Ohio. It does not make much sense to have two different plates for any given model that is produced in both operations. The Sitka spruce and hard rock maple are two other excellent examples of this approach. The action geometry is the same and has been since changes to the NY action in 1984 and 1992 (knuckle position and jack position respectively).
For example, we know that the different methods of creating our hammers contribute to the signature sounds that distinguish NY and Hamburg instruments. We in NY do use the balance rail bearings while the Hamburg uses the more standard flat punchings and I have seen no initiative to change that. It is a fact that we are now producing most of our C&A model Ds with a high-polish polyester ebony finish but this is more in response to venue desires rather than any standardization between NY and Hamburg.
We have an untouchable tenet at both NY and Hamburg. No change can have a negative effect on the quality of the instrument. We may at times make a change that has a cost reduction impact (very difficult and rare to accomplish) but quality can never be sacrificed. Much more often we find that to maintain our quality standard we must pay a higher price in the ever-changing worlds of material and labor costs. We do not make Steinway’s to a costs standard but rather make Steinways with the best materials possible and price them accordingly. To offset these upward trends in costs, we have a responsibility to spend what we do very wisely.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Kent